Embrace the Night (31 page)
Authors: Crystal Jordan
A choked cry spilled from her throat, and the musky scent of her arousal intensified. Her hands scrabbled for purchase on his back, and he could feel the heat and magic gather inside her. “No spells, sweetheart. Not here. Not tonight. No spells.”
“Merek, I need you.” Her voice was whisper-soft, but he heard it anyway. “No spells. Just you.”
She didn't say she loved him again, and he told himself it was for the best, that he didn't want to hear the words. Even as he recognized the lie, he forced himself to set her away from him, and caught her elbow when she staggered, her eyes glazed and her expression dazed with lust. It made his cock ache to be buried inside her.
“Yes. Now.” He stripped out of his boxers, pants and boots, left them in a tangled heap on the floor. He reached for her, and she met him halfway, pressing herself against his chest and rising on tiptoe to kiss him.
Having her in his embrace made some white-hot emotion expand in his chest until he couldn't breathe. He crushed that, wrestling it into the deepest, darkest corner of his soul where he wouldn't have to acknowledge it. Instead, he focused on the physical, on Chloe, on his woman in his arms. A groan rumbled in his chest. He slid his hands down her back, palmed the hot globes of her ass, and smiled against her mouth when she whimpered and wriggled.
The satin skin of her belly rubbed over his cock, and he choked. He backed her up until she hit the bed, smoothly rolling them onto the mattress. She hissed when her buttocks slid against the sheets, and some dark, possessive part of himself liked that she could feel his mark on her, that she'd be wearing it for a while since she wasn't allowed to use a healing spell on herself. Every time she moved, sat, lay in bed, she'd be reminded of him. Oh, yes. He liked that a lot.
Shifting them onto their sides, he pulled her close, looped her thigh over his. “Is this all right? Not too painful?”
“Good. Perfect. Yes.” She wound her fingers through his hair, tugging him close for a kiss. Her tongue twined with his, and he cherished the moment with her. A moment that was slipping through his fingers. He couldn't remember the last time anything had felt so right. Before Chloe . . . years. Maybe never.
He held her tighter, every inch of her welded to his front. Yes. He wanted that. The head of his cock brushed her wet core, and she jolted forward, tilting her hips in offering. He wanted to wait, to draw this time out as long as possible, but he couldn't. He needed her too much. A quick thrust, and he was hilted inside her, squeezed tight by her heated channel.
Closing his eyes, he had to grit his teeth to keep from coming then and there. Only Chloe could shred his control like this, and the emotional knot within him twisted at the knowledge that far too soon there would be nothing and no one that could do this to him. Just as he'd always preferred it. He blew out a harsh breath, ran his hands over every part of her he could reach, as if he could burn the feel of her into his mind, as if the memory could sustain him.
Somehow, she understood, touched him everywhere, kissed him deeper, gave him exactly what he needed. Everything. They rocked together slowly, savored each other. Sweat sealed their bodies, and their breathing grew ragged between kisses, as her breasts slid against his chest, and his pelvis rubbed over her clitoris. The fire that built within him wanted to rage out of control, but he couldn't let this end. Not now. Not yet.
Not yet.
Her sex began to clench around his cock every time he entered her, and he held on to his restraint by the tips of his fingers. The little cries and moans that spilled from her lips told him just how close she was to coming for him. She writhed against him like a cat in heat. Orgasm fisted in his belly, shudders racking his body. His groan was as helpless and hopeless as he felt. Too soon. Too soon to let go. Too soon to lose her.
“Merek,” she sobbed, ripping her mouth from his. She arched hard, the muscles in her thighs tensing as she impaled herself on his cock, took him deep, deeper than before.
The way her pussy milked him made his thoughts scatter, made orgasm inevitable. He pounded inside her, let her drag him into the abyss. Come spurted from him, filled her tight channel, and still he held himself deep, unwilling to lose this connection with her.
They shivered together, arms wrapped around each other, aftershocks quaking through both of them. She buried her face in his chest, and he could feel the wetness of her tears. His emotions gave another vicious wrench, but he ignored them, refused to accept them. Later. Later, he would deal with his own feelings.
Now was for Chloe.
He cradled her close, stroking back her damp hair. “Shh. Don't cry, sweetheart. Shh. Don't cry.”
She kissed him fiercely in response, demanding without words that he make her forget. Everything. Her tongue thrust into his mouth, and his cock went rock hard, thrusting into her pussy.
And he held her tight, pushed away reality, made love with her again and again and again. Just for the night. Just as she'd asked.
It was all he had to give her.
13
“C
hloe!”
hloe!”
Windows exploded in the living room, and the choked cough of silenced gunfire reported just before the shrill squeal of a woman in pain.
“Chloe!”
She bolted upright, her name coming at her from too many directions. Merek's bellow beside her as he flipped her off the bed and onto the floor, covering her with his heavy body. Alex's mental shout from upstairs she didn't have the ability to answer. The cry from the living room had been in a woman's voice. “Tess?”
More gunfire, more shattering glass and breaking wood. “Are you here, Chloe?”
“Merek, that's Tess.” She wheezed out a breath while he crushed her into the carpet. The glint of light off the dull black metal of his pistol made her swallow. It was too much like the last time, when Alex was shot. She pressed her forehead to the floor, regret lancing through her. “I'm sorry, Merek. You were right. We should never have come here.”
He grunted, stuffing the revolver into her hand. Then he jerked on his shirt, grabbed his pants, and rolled to shove himself into them. “There was no way to have known for sure, sweetheart. Stay here, stay down. I'm going to see what kind of mess we're in.”
“Broken glass. Put on your boots.” He did, and she clutched the revolver closer, scooting to put her back into a corner behind the bed and away from the windows. “Alex. Make sure Alexâ”
“I will.” He nodded a quick approval when he saw where she'd moved.
Resisting the urge to shove him to the floor and protect
him,
she returned his nod. “Be careful.”
him,
she returned his nod. “Be careful.”
“I will,” he repeated. Then he disappeared, leading with his pistol out into the hallway.
Gods, she was naked. All she had was a revolver. She shoved down on a hysterical giggle, sucked in a breath, and dredged up the magic inside her. Too late to pretend there were no Magickals here, right? She fought down another laugh.
“Clothes,” she ordered in a low voice. She closed her eyes tight, heard a rush of air, felt a hint of heat from the spell, and when she looked down again, she was dressed. Shoes to shirt, fully dressed. That was a first, but she didn't have time to wonder about it.
Her heart hammered in her chest, and she tried to slow it, tried to control her breathing so she could hear anything that was going on outside the bedroom. Who was here besides Tess? How many of them were there? Where was Alex? Where was Merek? She didn't know, could only sense people moving around her, perceive the faintest creaks of floorboards as they ghosted along. A huge thump sounded against the wall, and her night-light flickered wildly beside her, but its glow was soon dimmed by the streaks of dawn filtering through the heavy curtains.
Clamping her mouth closed to keep in a scream, she shifted her grip on the revolver, held it ready in case anything tried to get inside her room. The thumping continued, muffled shouts and grunts, the impact of flesh on flesh as two large people struck each other. But who? Merek? Other men? She didn't know. Merek would know. Alex would be able to sense it, but this wasn't her area of expertise. So she sat, trying not to tremble, and waited for whatever came next.
A lupine howl echoed above her. Alex!
She shot to her feet, her gaze pinned on the ceiling, and she strained with all her might to hear anything,
anything
that might tell her he was all right. The door to her room exploded inward, screeching on twisted hinges to embed itself in the wall.
anything
that might tell her he was all right. The door to her room exploded inward, screeching on twisted hinges to embed itself in the wall.
A huge, half-shifted wolf barreled in, a gun in each hand. His feral gaze locked on her, but her revolver was already pointed at him. He wasn't Merek or Alex or Tess. That was all she needed to know.
Her heart stopped, her hands trembled, but she pulled the trigger again and again until the gun clicked. Empty.
Merek watched the werewolf stumble back, a blank look of shock on his face as he dropped one gun and clutched at the bleeding holes in his chest. Not a shred of sympathy passed through Merek as he wrenched the man's other gun from his hand and used it to put six bullets in his skull. He fell. Dead. Even a wolf's healing magic wouldn't bring him back from that.
Tucking the pistol away as a spare, he grabbed the fallen weapon and tossed it to Chloe. She caught it, letting the spent revolver clatter to the floor. Her face was pale, but her step was steady as she walked to his side. She looked up at him, her eyes huge, her lips shaking, yet her voice was calm. “Is Alex okay? I heard him yell.”
“He's fine. Cavalli went to help him out.” Merek ejected the clip in his pistol and shoved in a fresh one, pulled back the slide, and chambered the first round. He kept his senses open, ready to detect an approaching attack.
Chloe fell in behind him when he moved down the hall to the front of the house. She spoke in a soft whisper, “Luca's here?”
The breathy tone was almost lost in a roar of gunfire overhead. A hissing shriek of an injured vampire made his ears ring. If Caveat failed and Alex got injured in any way, Merek would personally end the bloodsucking son of a bitch.
“He followed Tess, who got a report of a code change from the security company as well as the code someone tried to input before making the change. She figured it might be you, so she came to check it out instead of just calling the cops.” He swung her into the kitchen and down to the floor behind the island. A bruised, battered, and sopping wet Tess was already crouched there, a neat little compact pistol in her hands. He nodded to her. “By the time our vampiric friend pried that information out of her, he realized that Smith's men were following them and that he couldn't call to warn us because I didn't fucking leave him my number on the message.”
A muscle in Tess's cheek twitched. “Maybe I would have been a little more forthcoming if your vampiric friend had ever told me the truth about anything. At all.” She swallowed, shook her head. “Vampire.”
“Yeah, and I'm a witch.” Chloe shrugged, her face still too pale for Merek's liking. “So is Aunt Millie. Merek is a warlock, and Alex isâ”
“A werewolf,” Tess interrupted, stuffing a lock of her dripping red hair behind her ear. “Luca the liar filled me in on those little details after his fangs popped out when my boat was capsized by some kind of . . . of
force field.
”
force field.
”
“Spell. Not force field.” Chloe swallowed and met Merek's gaze. “How long do you think we have until the Normal police get here? Or the cavalry you told Luca to have standing by?”
“The spell hit while he was calling in. I'm pretty sure his phone's at the bottom of the Puget Sound.” Tess didn't look at either of them. “The cavalry's not coming.”
“I put a silencing spell on the place after the windows shattered.” He didn't need to tell Chloe the Magickal Council would expect them to die before they revealed themselves to Normals. Their lives were not worth every Magickal person's. It was the ugly reality of living with magic. “If we're lucky, no Normals are coming.”
“Luck. Right. We've done so well with that lately.” Chloe's chest lifted in slow, deep breaths, and he wished like hell they were in a place where he could comfort her, but they weren't and he couldn't, so he turned away and did his job.
The women fell silent when he lifted his hand. Something . . . swept along his senses. A person. Magickal. Hiding under an invisibility spell. He drew in a lungful of air, let half of it out. The brush of a footstep sounded to his left. He swung around the edge of the island. Fired two shots toward what he hoped was the chest.
Flames exploded outward, and he ducked back behind the island, throwing up a shielding spell to protect them, but the effort cost him. Fuck. This Magickal was old, powerful. Fire engulfed them, red and orange light flowing around his shield like liquid. Sweat sluiced down his skin as the heat hit him. Chloe yanked Tess closer to him, threw her own magic around them.
The heat lessened, and he swiveled around, taking a blind shot through the shield. He felt the reverberation as it pierced, but a short scream ended the flood of flames. Chloe collapsed against his side, panting. “Okay?”
“Fine. You? Tess?”
“Good,” Tess choked.
“Me, too.” Chloe patted his arm and chest as if looking for injuries. He used his free hand to catch hers, squeeze in brief reassurance, and then set her aside.
He forced his muscles to cooperate, to not shake from the outpouring of magic. Pushing himself up into a crouch, he kept the shield as strong as he could, and took a quick look at what they were facing. A woman lay sprawled on her back, her mouth gaping open and closed like a landed fish, a clear shot through her throat. Hovering over her was a vampire.
Not Cavalli.
Merek squeezed off another shot and tucked himself back behind the island as the vampire returned fire. He jolted and Chloe screamed in pain as the bullet ricocheted off their shield and exploded into the refrigerator. Shoving Chloe back against the cabinet door, he clamped a hand across her mouth, and looked up. He wasn't surprised to see the vampire perched on top of the island, fangs bared in a horrific smile.
They both fired. And hit.
The vampire barely jerked as blood bloomed from his chest, and Merek groaned as white-hot agony sliced into his thigh. Chloe dropped her gun to dive for his leg and the crimson that spurted upward. Femoral artery. His mind registered the severity of the wound, even as his instincts kept him moving. The vampire leaped to the counter across from them, laughed as Tess's Normal bullets hit him and did even less damage than Merek's one shot. He followed the bloodsucker with his weapon, but his body felt weak, his muscles unresponsive.
His aim wavered, the vampire's didn't, and he knew he'd failed.
A shadow that moved with unnatural speed sailed over the island and crashed into the vampire. Cavalli. They slammed through the wall and into the living room. Furious hissing and blows too swift to sound real echoed through the cloud of white plaster.
Chloe's healing spell wrapped around his leg, sealed the entry and exit wounds from the bullet, and began to weave the muscle and sinew back together. It fucking hurt. A lot. It felt like hot pokers jabbed into his leg, and stars burst before his eyes. He gritted his teeth and bore it, gurgled on a groan, sweat stinging his eyes.
“Merek! A little help, please.” Alex's call was so mild, Merek knew the kid was up to his neck in a fight he couldn't handle. A short howl ended in a whoosh of escaped breath. Someone had gut-punched the kid.
Scrambling to his feet, he grabbed the counter to keep his leg from collapsing under him. Pain stabbed from his thigh straight to his skull. The healing wasn't done, but it was good enough that he wasn't going to bleed out. “You two stay here. Chloe, pick up your gun.”
She fumbled in the pool of his blood to retrieve the pistol. Her hands shook, her lips colorless, her mouth pinched. The look in her eyes was haunted as she wiped the blood off her hands and onto her pants. “Be careful. Help Alex.”
Not bothering to waste time with a response, he turned away from her and stumbled out of the kitchen, almost tripping over the body of the woman he'd killed. He had to get to Alex.
Chloe watched him walk away, and it took everything in her not to scream for him to come back. She'd never wanted to hold on to anyone so tightly in her entire life. This need made her childhood clinging to Millie seem like nothing. It was terrifying and unstoppable. Only the fact that Alex needed help kept her mouth shut.
Tess shifted beside her. “What can we do? My bullets aren't doing shit against these guys.”
“No, you need special ammunition designed for Magickals.” An idea began to percolate. Rocking herself onto her hands and knees, Chloe crawled forward until she could reach the cleaning supplies under the sink. She glanced back at Tess. “Normal stuff is especially ineffective against vampires and werewolves. Because of their healing abilities.”
“I see.”
A sick feeling crawled through Chloe at the expressionless mask her friend wore, but what could she say? Tess wasn't an idiot. The conclusions she was obviously coming to were pretty damn accurate. “I'm sorry I lied to you, Tess. I'm sorry we all lied to you.”
“Did you have a choice?”
Pulling out every cleaning solution she could get her hands on, she lined them up on the floor to see what she had to work with. “No, but that doesn't make it suck less.”
“That's for damn sure.” Tess's voice went hoarse, and her eyes closed for a moment. When she opened them, she was back in control, the mask firmly in place. “What can we do?”
“I can make some explosives.” Chloe didn't mention that the Council would probably order Tess's memory altered so she wouldn't know about magic after this was over. She also didn't tell her friend that she didn't have enough magic left to generate a flame spell like Merek and she had blocked. A few nasty potions were the best she could do. She rifled through the cabinets under the island until she came up with a few plastic containers.
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